This first appeared on Splice Today.
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As a critic, I not infrequently know the artists or writers whose work I write about.
If you’ve been following the #gamersgate controversy at all, you know that some people think that this is really wrong. “Journalistic ethics!” people shouted over and over on twitter. It wasn’t exactly clear what they meant by this, but critics knowing artists seemed to be at least one semi-inchoate focus of outrage.
To some degree, you can understand the concerns. There’s a vision of journalistic objectivity which involves a reviewer ruthlessly evaluating the work in front of him or her without any reference to, or knowledge of the creator. The critic, in this view, is supposed to be a completely impartial observer, affixing a stamp of quality or animadversion so that readers can know that they are spending their hard-earned dollars in the best of all possible ways.
The reality is a lot messier. In part, that’s because, if you review a work positively, one of the things that often happens is that the creator of the work gets in touch with you to say, hey, awesome, you liked my work! Often creators will write me just to say thank you (which is lovely). Sometimes, though, they’ll contact me in the hopes that I might review their next book or project, too.
So, is that unethical? Now that I’ve talked to them, am I supposed to never write about their work again? That seems silly; the only reason I know them, after all, is that I like their work. I guess you could argue for some sort of disclosure — but what would I say? “Fair warning: I really like this creator’s work; this creator likes that I like their work. Now on to the review, where I say I like their work!”
The thing is, when I do like somebody’s work, that can also open the way for other collaborations. Many writers and artists I admire, like Ariel Schrag, Edie Fake, and Stacey Donovan, have posted on my little, all volunteer blog at one point or another, because I love their work and when they appear in my inbox to say they liked a review, I’ll sometimes ask them if they would be interested in contributing. If you were determined to be offended by that sort of thing, you could argue it’s a quid pro quo, and that I’m receiving content (even if not money) for good reviews. Edie even designed the banner for my site (which I happily paid him for.) But again, the whole reason I find their contributions valuable is because I value their work — which is what I say whenever I write a review talking about how awesome Ariel Schrag and Edie Fake are.
The disconnect here isn’t just about ethics. It’s about the nature of criticism. A lot of the people posting to gamersgate seem to see reviews primarily as a way to make purchasing decisions. Reviews, from this perspective, are a buyer’s guide; it’s the equivalent of a consumer report. You don’t want the person who evaluates the gas mileage on your Prius to be buddies with the Prius manufacturers, because you’d worry that they might try to help their friend out by saying that the Prius gets better gas mileage than it does. You want an objective take on the value of that Prius.
But while objectivity makes sense as a goal in evaluating Priuses, it doesn’t as a goal for evaluating art. Criticism of art is always, by its nature subjective. And, at least for me, criticism tends to be less about saying, buy this or don’t buy this, and more about trying to engage with, and think about, what an artist is saying, or what a work is doing. A piece of criticism is as much about talking to, or with, the artist as it is providing a consumer report. On #gamersgate art is seen as a product, which is certainly one thing art can be. But art’s also a community. Which is why having actual conversations with the artist in question doesn’t seem like an ethical violation. Having conversations with the artist is my job.
I would agree. While I would not say I am friends with any of the people whose work I have done critical work on or reviewed, I have met several, had lunch or dinner with them, perhaps interact with them on social media, etc. Am I less likely to write a negative review of their work (or opt not to review something by them that I don’t much like) than I would be with someone I did not know at all? Yes. Do I see this as an ethical problem? No, not really. As you say, the evaluation of art is subjective, not objective. And if I didn’t like their work in the first place, odds are I would never have met them.
I don’t know whether it’s an ethical issue, but I think an artist/critic friendship can definitely have a negative effect on the criticism. If Jeet Heer absolutely hates something by his good friend Chester Brown, his natural inclination will be to say so very, very nicely, convince himself that it’s actually not so bad, or avoid reviewing it. And if Art Spiegelman had been one of your college professors and given you a ton of encouragement and affection, you wouldn’t have written that “In the Shadow of No Talent” essay.
I think most people would say that criticism, and the commonwealth in general, would have benefited if I hadn’t written the shadow of no talent essay!
I think the default if a friend does something you don’t like is just not to review it (this is my default, anyway). The thing about that is, though, in most cases, most of the time, there’s little opportunity to review things you don’t like anyway. Criticism is hugely tilted towards pointing out things people might want to buy or purchase. There’s only really a call for slamming something if it’s so big that people feel they have to deal with it—so superstar record releases or large release films or the like.
Comics is small enough that you do get issues with someone like Jeet being buddies with folks who are notable enough that they could get negative reviews, like Chester Brown. So it does come up…but I think the dynamics make it less of an issue than you might think in a lot of cases.
I have written negative reviews of work by people I’m friends or acquaintances with though. Not often, but on occasion.
So, I think I understand the disconnect gamergate people experience that you find so weird, and I think it’s complicated. It might be simple, and I might be overanalyzing, but here’s my take.
1) Games are really fucking expensive. A typical new release runs for $60 at least. Small, indie games and downloadable titles (which are getting more popular, but are seen as something other than “full” games, meaning AAA blockbusters) usually run around $10-$20. Gaming is expensive as a hobby, so even for affluent consumers, they really are just looking for a buyers’ guide, because they have a limited capacity to actually participate in the hobby, financially. It is very common for players to simply not give a shit about the artistic or narrative dimension of a game, and simply to focus on the very technical, “how fun is this game”, which they expect to be an objective judgment. This leads to…
2) Developers respond to this mentality quite directly. They develop games on the premise that people want something closer to Red Rover than Spielberg in kind. That is, they want fun, not art, necessarily. This is obviously not universally true, and there are plenty of games that could be considered really compelling art. But the mainstream is dominated by the FPS and RPG genres, which are exercises in technological gratuity, for the most part. The entire of Call of Duty franchise’s stories are essentially long-winded, fairly racist, politically ludicrous justifications for chest-thumping machismo. Even with cool Easter Eggs and narrative plugs here and there, most games just don’t give a damn about being Art.
3) Finally, the industry is both young and idiosyncratic, in that it’s more of a technology field at the moment. Developers frequently publish technical research at academic conferences, especially in Graphics and AI. Artistic experimentation with the form is really only just starting, by any measure, given how young the medium is, and because of points 1 and 2, this artistry is frequently buried under mountains of techno-gratuity.
So, in summary, your priorities as an art critic and art consumer are simply not the priorities of a gamer, and so when you (rightfully) criticize gamergate for treating criticism like a buyers’ guide…well, that’s exactly what they want. That’s also because gamers like to think their industry/hobby is apolitical, which is, of course, total bull, because it’s one of the most reactionary industries/media anywhere, at the moment
Holy crap, that was long…sorry for that.
Sure, Petar, I don’t agree with that. It’s the part where you start a shrieking hate mob because folks have a somewhat different perspective on what games are or could be that ends up being the problem, I’d say.
I mean let’s be clear…gamergate exists because of intense misogyny in gaming culture, not because of anything I just described above. Everything I just outlined is really a symptom of political reactionary tendencies, mostly inherited from the technology industry. The treatise I wrote above is really just an explanation for the most superficial schism between your view and theirs (I agree with you, in all respects, on this issue, to be clear).
I believe I saw this article when it first appeared on Splice. I agreed with it then and I agree with it now. The gamergate “movement” is at best pointless (presuming that they genuinely do care about the concerns that are represented in Noah’s article), and at worst actively malignant (as can be seen in the various sleazy and despicable ways some of the gamergate movement treats people who disagree with them).
Anyway, I’m rambling pointlessly now. Just wanted to say that I found this a great article Noah.
@Jon S.
“presuming that they genuinely do care about the concerns that are represented in Noah’s article”
They don’t.
“the various sleazy and despicable ways some of the gamergate movement treats people who disagree with them”
That’s a very generous way to put it.
But yeah, I guess we’re all in agreement here. Gamergate’s a bummer, HOORAY US!